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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Shoot The Ballerina

When the revolution came,Katya was in mid-air.Her partner was so taken with the sight of the soldiers in their uniforms,That he forgot himselfLike Jesus' luggage,And forgot Katya as well.She came down from the spinning embrace of God,Not into her partner's strong hands,But behind the blankness of his backAs he smiled at a cavalryman.She fell like a sputnikTo the hard stageAnd the monkey withinHowled Tchaikovsky flawlessly.This is where they shoot me,She thought, amazed.My leg is brokenJust like the performance,Just like the dynasty,Or the regime.This is where they shoot meQuick and clean behind one pitch-perfect ear.But the cavalryman lay deadAt the hands of the second violinist,Who,In fierce regret,Shook him like a puppet to revive himThat he might rejoin the violence and stupidity of the moment.Like an equine saint, came the cavalryman's horse.She grabbed a stirrup,And he plunged magnificently over each row of seatsAs if they were river stones or fence rails.Again,Katya was launched Heavenward;Her lips at his velvet ear whispered,Tonight, we both escape the glue factory!This time, when she came down,It was on his backOn the cobbled street outside,And they went like hell,Like anything,Like that,Til the moon disappeared, a fresh-healed bone._______for dverse OLN #6

25 comments:

Your tales of the surreal are growing ever more amazing--this is shining with a sense of madness and escape from madness, society as the insane asylum where the inmates are in charge, and the only salvation is to find that riveting brown animal eye that understands. Splendid in both scope and execution, the whole piece is lyric and high flying, with the fourth stanza my favorite, though it's hard to pick which is the least stereotypical. Fine fine writing here, Shay.

dang...this is a mini action movie...cant imagine the dancers fall though...partnering a ballerina before i was always fearful of dropping such a delicate creature...very surreal beyond that...i am glad she escaped...i wish we all could...at times...

a day without magical words from Shay is a day filled with grey and loneliness. if i didn't love your writing so much, i'd be jealous. {i DO love it, but i'm still jealous.} you continue to surpass yourself ~ no one else can come close! ♥ d

I'll amen Hedgewitch that your storytelling is ramping up into cultural helterskelter where narrative and poetry ride the same horse into the magic sunset. I have no idea what this is about -- my guesses are all elliptical, like waves -- and love it for that. - Brendan

Being me and wanting to know why and all that stuff, I read this many times over two days. But I didn't exactly figure out why (although I really wanted to) and for some reason every time until the end I had inserted an elephant and a punch and judy show in the mix.

Also being in figure skating for more than half my life when you say she was in mid-air when the revolution began my mind said, well of course she was or she wouldn't have time to complete the rotations. So when I got to soldiers I wondered if it were a ballet on ice; but now at least I think I finally read it without inserting my craziness and found I still don't know the why but it is a wonderful p.t. barnum kind of theater of the absurd that "could" be a commentary on the times and political satire and if that's true, it certainly works for me; (I'm thinking Hillary Clinton here). And if it's simply the way you saw something and wrote it, all the better for being truly brilliant as everyone else said!Great to read.

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“I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.” ― Jack London, The Turtles of Tasman

"The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all." — Ted Hughes

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Welcome to the Word Garden

The Word Garden consists of original poems written by me, Shay a.k.a. Fireblossom. Please stop a while and enjoy them. But don't pick the blooms that you find here, they must not be planted elsewhere without permission of the author.